Canada rejects US bid for Megaupload info, kind of

As the Megaupload cases in New Zealand and America grind on, the Department of Justice has been handed a small rebuff in Canada, with an Ontario court rejected its request for access to all data on servers seized in that country.

Thirty-two servers were seized in Canada, and while Megaupload didn’t ask for the machines to be returned, it argued to the court that much of the data on the servers was irrelevant to the case.

“The Respondent’s position is that there is an enormous volume of information on the servers and that sending mirror image copies of all of this data would be overly broad, particularly in light of the scantiness of the evidence connecting these servers to the crimes alleged by the American prosecutors”, the judgment notes.

However, Megaupload is in no way off the hook in Canada. The judge has ordered that rather than full access to data on the servers, the DoJ and Megaupload need to propose a refined order that would limit the data handover to information relevant to the case.

As Dotcom preps the successor to Megaupload, the DoJ this week refuted his claim of entrapment by US authorities.

Speculation is mounting about the details of the new service, due for launch this week. Originally to be at his mansion, Kim Dotcom’s Twitter announcements are now inviting New Zealanders to Ice Cream on Queen Street for the announcement and a flood of freebies. ®